Angus deaton

High school or less

Some college

Percent

Percent

Bachelor’s degree or more

All

40

50

60

70

Age

40

50

60

70

Age

40

50

60

70

Age

40

50

60

70

Age

1993–96

1999–2002

2005–08

2012–15

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420

 

Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring 2017

cohort. For those with a bachelor’s degree, successive birth cohorts overlap 

in their reports of pain at any given age, while for those with less education, 

an ever-larger share report pain in successive cohorts. Similar results obtain  

for other morbidities.

II.  Mortality and Incomes

Much of the commentary has linked the deteriorating health of midlife 

whites to what has happened to their earnings and incomes, and in particular 

to stagnation in median wages and in median family incomes. Because there 

has been real growth in per capita GDP and in mean per capita income, the 

poor performance for middle-class incomes can be mechanically attributed 

to the rising share of total income captured by the best-off Americans. This 

suggests an account in which stagnant incomes and deteriorating health 

become part of the narrative of rising income inequality; see a recent essay  

by Joseph Stiglitz (2015) for one provocative statement. According to this 

scenario, the rise in suicides, overdoses, and alcohol abuse would not have 

occurred if economic growth had been more equally shared. Quite apart 

from the question of whether, if the top had received less, the rest would 

have received more, we shall see that the economic story can account for 

part of the increases in mortality and morbidity, but only a part, and that 

it leaves more unexplained than it explains. Our preliminary conclusion is 

that, as in previous historical episodes, the changes in mortality and mor-

bidity are only coincidentally correlated with changes in income.

Figure 13. 

Reports of Sciatic Pain for White Non-Hispanics, by Birth Year

Sources: CDC National Health Interview Survey; authors’ calculations. 

15

10

15

10

5

Percent

Percent